Centexbel
The Belgian technical and scientific centre for the textile and plastic processing industry, CENTEXBEL, wants to encourage the competitiveness of the Belgian textile companies and plastic processing companies by encouraging and supporting innovation.
As one of the largest European research centres, CENTEXBEL performs five activities that reinforce each other: applied research development, testing and certification, knowledge dissemination & and standardisation.
The accredited laboratories of CENTEXBEL (BELAC ISO/IEC 17025) perform a full range of textile tests. With its semi-industrial pilot lines for product and process development, CENTEXBEL assists companies in their search for new, original, and successful niche products and/or applications of new technologies.
CENTEXBEL has an international and sector exceeding network with various research institutes, universities and specialist suppliers and user groups. In the framework of this INTERREG project, CENTEXBEL also performs the general coordination.
Ifremer
Ifremer has been studying the behavior of polymeric and composite materials in the marine environment for 30 years. To achieve this, the institute has a wide range of skills and expertise, including :
➜ Aging of polymers and composites (different environments: air, freshwater, seawater and different influencing factors: temperature, pressure, etc.)
➜ Characterization of mechanical behavior (materials and structures)
➜ Physico-chemical characterization (at different scales)
➜ Prediction of service life based on structure-property relationships.
➜ End-of-life polymers
Ifremer has also been working on plastic pollution for a number of years, and has developed specific skills in this area of research, particularly in the visualization and identification of particles through molecular-scale characterization.
IMT Nord Europe
IMT Nord Europe is an engineering school and research center comprising 3 centers, including CERI MP (Center for Education, Research and Innovation, Materials and Processes).
CERI MP is a multi-disciplinary upstream and downstream research team made up of teacher-researchers, engineers, technicians and an administrative department. Its activities are focused on optimizing the processing/shaping of polymers, composites and civil engineering materials and their properties of use for different industrial sectors.
CERI MP is supported by a technology platform that is unrivalled in France, bringing together most of the technologies for processing/shaping polymers/composites and cementitious materials, as well as specific resources for materials characterization (mechanical, thermomechanical, rheological, thermal, structural properties, etc.).
EuraMaterials
EuraMaterials is the benchmark cluster for the materials processing industries in the Hauts de France region. It is a national competitiveness cluster, a regional innovation park and a site of excellence for the European Metropolis of Lille, including an incubator-accelerator.
EuraMaterials federates and connects ecosystems (research, companies, institutions), informs and educates companies about new markets, products, processes and services, and supports them in their collaborative or individual innovation projects.
EuraMaterials promotes their know-how internationally and supports companies in implementing their projects to meet the challenges of the circular economy, resources, decarbonization and the digital transition.
EuraMaterials establishes collaborations with its international partners and participates in European projects as a partner or lead partner. The cluster is particularly active in North-Western Europe in projects involving textile recycling, new packaging, medical devices and bio-based materials.
EuraMaterials organizes numerous workshops under an agreement with CLUBTEX, the technical textiles club, and has 170 members, including a significant number from the entire textile value chain in the Hauts de France and Belgium.
EuraMaterials supports companies and universities in their innovation or investment projects involving biobased materials.
Aquimer
Aquimer is a French cluster made up of private and public organizations specialized in adding value to aquatic products.
Aquimer contributes to the competitiveness of companies by responding to their needs, helping them to sustain and develop their activities through R&D and improved technologies. It supports companies from project set-up through to financing and marketing of new products, services and processes.
AQUIMER has over 160 members, including companies, technology and innovation centers, professional organizations, research and training centers and public institutions. This network of members covers a wide range of activities related to aquatic products, enabling us to cover the entire seafood value chain: from fisheries and fish farms to retailers, fish processing, restaurants and supermarkets.
VLIZ – Flanders Marine Institute
In VLIZ, the research group Plastics in Local and Global Waters, focuses on the distribution of plastic litter in the environment, on assessing the effects and risks of micro and nanoplastics, and on leachates and co-contaminants of plastic.
This research group also contributes to research on the efficient deployment of technologies for plastic disposal, and to the promotion of ocean literacy and behavior change around the issue of plastic pollution. Marine litter and plastic pollution are an important research topic within VLIZ, involving multidisciplinary cooperation at both national and international levels.
The Policy & Innovation Department also deals with the valorization of new knowledge to stakeholders from policy, industry, science and society. Together with these stakeholders, innovation projects are initiated to investigate innovative solutions.
ILVO
EV ILVO conducts independent, multidisciplinary research into sustainable agriculture, fisheries and aquaculture.
EV ILVO has a workshop for manufacturing fishing trawls suitable for experimental research, an indoor tank for testing trawls and several experimental rooms with seawater tanks.
EV ILVO develops fishing trawls, builds and tests scale models, builds them to actual size and evaluates their performance and impact at sea. This is done, for example, on the basis of catch analyses, underwater recordings, traction and acoustic measurements on board research and commercial fishing vessels. EV ILVO studies trawling and passive fishing.
EV ILVO’s aquaculture department has extensive expertise in sea farming systems.